Tag: PA-12

Mr. Murtha, a 76-year-old Marine veteran schooled in the blunt-knuckle deal-making that defined politics here, is contrition-free when it comes to his success.

“If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district,” Mr. Murtha said. “My job as a member of Congress is to make sure that we take care of what we see is necessary. Not the bureaucrats who are unelected over there in whatever White House, whether it’s Republican or Democrat. Those bureaucrats would like to control everything. Every president would like to have all the power and not have Congress change anything. But we’re closest to the people.”

Murtha’s remarks recall another one of CREW’s most corrupt lawmakers, Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who defended his controversial earmarks on the House floor in 2007. “I was always proud of my earmarks. I believe in earmarks, always have, as long as they are exposed. But don’t you ever call that a scandal,” said Young.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…

Anyone think this could cause him trouble in 2010?  I’m sure his district has known he was corrupt for a long time, but could this be the final straw?  I really wish he and Kanjorski would save us the trouble and retire in 2010.

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo made statements in a speech at Schenectady County Community College on Tuesday to the effect that his “only plan is to run for re-election as attorney general,” and that he believes David Paterson will be re-elected as governor. I wouldn’t be prone to believe him (and it seems like nobody else does either; only The Hill has taken any notice of this comment), given his poll numbers and the fundraising groundwork he’s laid. It just seems weird; he’s well past the point where he needs to be coy about his plans.

• NY-20: About that recent DNC ad touting Obama’s endorsement of Scott Murphy… while the existence of the ad itself has been gobbling up a good deal of headlines, it appears that it won’t actually be seen by a lot of eyeballs in-district. The DNC’s independent expenditure filing with the FEC indicates that they’re only putting up $10,000 for the ad buy. (J)

• CA-10: Departing Rep. Ellen Tauscher has already endorsed state senator Mark DeSaulnier to take her place. Apparently she had intended to wait until he formally announced his candidacy, but the internal poll from yesterday from assemblywoman Joan Buchanan showing her in the lead may have forced Tauscher’s hand.

• UT-Sen: The knives are still out for Bob Bennett, but it’s looking like someone higher up the totem pole than former Juab County DA David Leavitt may jump into the primary: Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is also “considering” it. Ultra-conservatives sense an opening because of Bennett’s pro-bailout vote, and also because of Utah’s unique nominating system. A candidate who consolidates activist support and breaks 60% at the state convention outright wins, and can avoid the primary altogether.

• KS-Sen: Here’s another example of how Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn likes to keep us guessing. Not only is he wading into the GOP senate primary in his neighboring state, but he’s endorsing Rep. Jerry Moran, who passes for a moderate by Kansas standards, over Rep. Todd Tiahrt, from the religious right corner of the party.

• MI-11: Back to the drawing board? Democratic state Sen. Glenn Anderson, who has been the target of a draft effort to encourage him to take on GOP weirdo Thaddeus McCotter, says that he’ll probably run for re-election instead. (J)

• PA-12: Bill Russell, who held Jack Murtha to 58% in 2008, is back for another try in 2010. No word if he’ll use BMW Direct for his fundraising efforts again.

The NRCC has just filed a $465,000 TV buy against Democratic Rep. John Murtha.

That ain’t chump change. Could we really see an upset here on Tuesday?

UPDATE: SSP is changing our rating of this race from Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic.

LATER UPDATE: The DCCC has responded with a $450K blast of their own.

Dane & Associates for Glen Meakem (10/27-28, ‘probable’ voters, 10/13-14 in parens):

Jack Murtha (D-inc): 46

William Russell (R): 44

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Here’s the takeaway: don’t call your constituents ‘racists.’ Jack Murtha is an institution in this D+5 district (he’s the one of only two sitting congress members to have the local airport named after him… the other one, of course, is Ted Stevens). Institution status notwithstanding, though, we’re starting to see a pattern here in his post-gaffe environment… as much as these GOP internal polls individually seem ticky-tacky, they’re accumulating and it’s troubling that Murtha hasn’t responded in kind. With the DCCC and NRCC (as well as right-wing Vets for Freedom) jumping in with last minute ad buys, and with Murtha making a pitch for money to Move On members, we at SSP feel there’s enough cause for concern here to downgrade this race to “Likely Democratic.”

Remember that William Russell is one of the ‘defrauder’ candidates raising funds through shadowy direct mail firm BMW Direct. Josh Marshall returned to this story yesterday, finding that Russell is actually pocketing a fair bit of money ($1.1 million, out of $2.5 million raised) even after paying for BMW’s unusually large fees. That $1.1 million is still much less than the $2 million that Murtha has spent, though.

As for the other bit players in this story, Dane & Associates is a Las Vegas-based automated pollster who, as best as I can tell from a quick Google of the tubes, has never made public any of its polls prior to this race. This poll was made public through grassrootsPA.com, a right-wing state blog that seems to aspire to be a local version of Drudge, based on its firehose-spew of news items and atrocious design sensibilities. The guy who actually paid for it, Glen Meakem, seems to be a Pittsburgh-area internet rich guy with his own Republican political aspirations, at least according to this puff piece from the right-leaning Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Heinous wingnut Michelle Malkin is breathlessly reporting a leaked GOP internal poll in PA-12 showing incumbent John Murtha (D) losing by approximately 13 points to GOP challenger Bill Russell.

Dane and Associates (R) (10/22, 800 likely voters)

John Murtha (D-inc): 34.8

Bill Russell (R): 47.6

Update: I should point out that we don’t have a full press release on this, and as one commenter pointed out, for all we know this could be a message-testing poll. In other words, they might be preceding the poll question with negative information about Murtha and/or positive info about Russell. If more info is released, I will update further.

Murtha had a reverse-Macaca moment recently when he called western Pennsylvania a “racist area” and said that the area until recent years used to be “really redneck”. Predictably, these comments have not been received well, much as Michelle Bachmann’s “anti-American” comments changed the dynamic in her district. Another poll by Republican pollster Susquehanna Polling & Research conducted a day prior for consevative rag the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (the Mellon Scaife outfit) showed Murtha up by 5 points but very vulnerable.

Susquehanna POlling & Research (R) (10/21, 400 likely voters)

John Murtha (D-inc): 46

Bill Russell (R): 41

(MoE: ±4.9%)

It should be noted that Russell used BMW Direct for fundraising, a scam company that raises huge amounts of money for longshot candidates and keeps most of the money for itself. In the 3rd quarter, Russell raised an eyebrow-raising $1.592 million, and “spent” $1.529 million (ie, about 95% went to BMW Direct from the looks of it). Murtha, on the other hand, raised $457k and spent all of it presumably on defending his seat. The CoH picture is not really confidence-inspiring – Murtha reported $591k to Russell’s $333k. The PVI of this district is D+5, so if we do lose this seat, it will become a top priority challenge next cycle. Bill Russell is way more conservative than this district (Malkin has been pumping for him all year), but his millitary-hero story is likely to win him some points.

Unfortunately for Murtha and Kanjorski, the fierce anti-incumbent mood that has been playing in Pennsylvania since 2006 (causing huge turnover in state legislative races) can topple Democrats as well as Republicans.

Two new polls now shows longtime Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha in serious trouble for reelection.  http://www.ourcampaigns.com/Ra…

His Republican challenger has an internal poll that shows the Republican up 48%-35% and a local newspaper has Murtha up just 46%-41%.  

If anything, Murtha needs to quickly start hitching himself to Obama’s coattails if he wants to win reelection.  We already appear likely to lose Kanjorski in the solidly Democratic PA-11 and now we may lose Murtha as well.  This is not good.  

I try not to put “breaking” in subject titles, because it looks so silly a few hours after you post one…

Diana Irey, the corrupt harpy who tried it last time, is busy keeping her snout in the smaller trough of her local office, so she’s not going to run against Congressman John Murtha again in 2008.

John Russell, 45, a hawk on the war, is moving into the district to run on the Republican ticket. Of course that’s legal, but local voters seldom like it.

http://www.centredai…

Doesn’t appear to be a very dangerous threat, at first blush. And it appears to me that the only constituency that he would appeal to (rabid fans of the war) are already going to vote against the incumbent, so he adds nothing, absolutely nothing, to GOP chances in a district that has returned John Murtha to Congress fifteen times. If Giuliani is the Republican candidate, he might lend teeny-tiny coattails to this guy, but not enough to imperil the seat.

It’s perfectly legal to run for US House in a district where you don’t have deep roots or local connections, but the voters seldom like it.